This invention relates to an electronic musical instrument capable of playing the tones of a musical instrument selected from among a plurality of musical instrument types and more particularly to a system for selecting a musical instrument type being played.
A widely disseminated electronic organ is the type which comprises a large number of tablets or drawbars, and gives forth the tones of any desired type of musical instrument by the "ON" or "OFF" setting of said tablets or drawbars or the extent to which the drawbars are pulled out. However, combination of the tablets or drawbars to play the tones of a selected type of musical instrument involved complicated operations. Provision of numerous tablets or drawbars required a large space in an electronic musical organ. Though it may be regarded as possible to select a type of musical instrument over a seemingly infinite range by combination of the tablets or drawbars, yet said combination is actually restricted due to the particular tone-producing mechanism of an electronic organ. Therefore, combinations of the tablets or drawbars allowing for practical application have naturally been defined within a limited range.
In recent years, therefore, an electric organ or synthesizer is put to practical use, in which the types of musical instrument specified by frequently applied combinations of tablets or drawbars or special types of musical instrument, such as the cembalo, piano, flute and clarinet are preset, and the tones of a musical instrument selected from the preset types are given forth by one of the stop switches corresponding to said types of musical instrument. An electronic organ in which the types of musical instruments are thus preset is indeed saved from the complicated operations accompanying the aforesaid tablet- or drawbar-type electronic organ. But it is still necessary to provide a large number of stop switches occupying a considerable space in an electronic organ.
As mentioned above, the prior art electronic organ or synthesizer which comprises not only performance keys but also numerous switches such as tablets, drawbars or stopswitches used to specify a particular type of musical instrument has the drawbacks that said switches occupy a large space, unavoidably rendering an electronic organ bulky; and the known electronic organ is handicapped, for example, by complicated construction, low operability and high cost and is unadapted to be rendered portably compact and inexpensive.
This invention has been accomplished in view of the above-mentioned circumstances and is intended to provide a simple system for selecting a desired type of musical instrument from among those which are preset in an electronic musical instrument.